daniwo59(a)aol.com wrote: In a message dated 2/20/2008 4:05:54 PM Eastern Standard Time, brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org writes: Composer's have life+95 (IIRC) which means that ELP and the like won't be appearing on WMF servers anytime soon (I met Greg Lake in London a few years back, so he's still around). Where this impacts the foundation is stuff done late 19th century and the composer is long dead. A performance recorded in the 50s or 60s of the work would be impacted, in some cases it'd be withdrawn from the public domain. My point was more on ELP's adaptation of works. For instance, ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition came out in 1971. Mussorgsky wrote it in 1874, so it would have made the mark, however, it was only first published (by Rimsky-Korsakov) in 1886. Would ELP, by recording the piece, potentially have been violating copyright. ---- You've hit on a good case there, I assume Mussorgsky died more than 95 years ago, so the composer's copyright has expired. In fact, it'd likely expired by the time ELP recorded the stuff. Even if it hadn't, all you need to do is get a "mechanical license" to allow you to do your own recording. So, much to my surprise - and delight - there may be some ELP stuff could go on Commons in the next few years if this measure is beaten. ---- I am also curious as to how this would impact songs like Vera Lynn's recording of "We'll Meet Again" (1939). Or more so, any classic recordings of "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" from World War I. ---- You need to look up who wrote these songs, and when they died. You can, with a fair degree of certainty, say that anything written during the 20th century won't be available to us. If it was written more than a hundred years ago you're starting to look at it being available to us in the near future, but that's where the performer's (c) comes in and the proposed legislation impacts us. ---- Just wondering--the implications go far beyond Cliff Richard's pension fund. ---- I've found a source online that described this as the "Beatles copyright extension act", yet none of their material would fall into the public domain. If memory serves correctly the vast majority of their songs were credited Lennon/McCartney. The latter is still alive and going through a messy divorce. Were he to drop dead tomorrow we'd have another 95 years to wait before the material fell into the public domain. On the other hand, and the issue the Commission is trying to deal with, Ringo and George will soon stop receiving their royalties as the performer copyright will expire. What really pisses me off is that the rest of us are expected to budget from our income for our retirement. This is a select group where the government (or rather, EU) is mandating that the public at large have to pay their pension for them by altering the law. It is a notable change to a contract between government and public that is not in the public's favour. The only people who will significantly benefit are the major labels who have bought up performer's rights by contract deals and the like. I've made a start for a Wikinews article on this here, http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Story_preparation/Wikinews_interviews_E rik_Josefsson_on_working_around_the_EU_and_proposed_copyright_changes I'm going along to this meeting on Friday to ask how can WMF support them and similar questions, I'm taking a fellow Wikinewsie along so I don't have to say "Now I'm a journalist", "Now I'm ComCom". Input on questions to put to Erik would be most welcome. Don't worry about messing up the formatting on the article, someone will sort it out. Brian McNeil